Thanks to an exterior clad in what look like reflective metal bars, Alain Robert, a professional urban climber, simply walked up to the Meliá Barcelona Sky hotel and started climbing, eventually scaling the 29-story structure in just 22 minutes, without the use of any safety gear.

Climbing Mt. Everest is an arduous grind that requires months of training and the ability to function at the most inhospitable elevations our planet has to offer, but the suite of technical challenges it presents are not as difficult as nearby peaks of comparable height. It’s not, well, a hike exactly, it just doesn’t…

Some things, like cooking or watching terrible movies, are best enjoyed in the company of a significant other—or casual sexual acquaintance, no judgements here. Personally, climbing over 2,000 feet up to a rickety crane overlooking Tianjin, China doesn’t seem like a romantic activity so much as a way for both people…

The Eiffel Tower is the most famous and one of the most heavily-guarded structures in Paris. For a fee you can hang out inside of it, but its upper reaches are not legally accessible to the public. So three Russian daredevils decided to scale it anyway, without safety equipment, while being filmed by a drone. Go big…

Most people see a tower crane and wonder what it’s building. These guys see a construction crane and think the logical thing to do is to to climb it all the way up, walk all the way across, and then just hang out there while literally hanging off the crane. The crane basically becomes a playground to them. The monkey…

It’s not as scary tall as climbing oversized skyscrapers but climbing churches can be just as frightening because the buildings are so much older and the spire is totally not meant to be climbed. Plus, what if one of those things he stood on just snapped off because, well, they’re old!? But one thing that is cool…

When you see these climbers reach the top of Lotte World Tower, a 1,823-foot tower that’s the tallest building in South Korea and taller than One World Trade Center in New York, there’s an ever so brief moment of peace. Wow, things look great from up here! And then it’s back to the stressfulness of watching someone do…

Man, this is just so fun to watch. The beautiful alien world that is Iceland is always so picturesque but it’s even better when seen from up close, like from the perspective of Klemen Premrl and his crew of climbers ice picking their way up to the top of an ice structure. The crystal glow of the ice cave, the shocking…

If there is a mountain, people will climb it. Or at least, people that are much, much bolder than I am. Here is some incredible point of view footage from David Lama and Conrad Anker as they become the first expedition to reach the headwall of Lunag Ri, a mountain that’s over 22,000 feet tall on the border of Nepal…

Shun Hung Square is a 1,260-foot tall skyscraper that’s the third tallest building in Shenzhen, China. It’s really, really tall. And watching the guys from On the Roofs climb it gets more and more stressful because they just keep going up. You think they’ve reached the top but there’s still another level that’s…

Don’t look down. That’s the only advice that kind of works when you’re up high on a 920-foot tall structure. But what if you’re descending down a ladder on the side of said 920-foot tall structure? You have to look down. But what if that ladder was swaying backwards because it’s very flimsily attached to the side of…

I love climbing arguably more than breathing, but when you’re stuck in the same gym with the same routes all day long, it can get just the teensiest bit boring. This augmented reality climbing game seems like the perfect antidote.

Here’s a crazy way to celebrate Christmas: go to Brazil and climb up the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro and check out the crazy view of the city and its beaches on the shoulder of Jesus Christ. Don’t mind the fact that the statue’s shoulder slopes down and that there’s nothing to hold on to though!

Welp. I know what job I can never do. And that’s be a tower crane operator. To even start operating a crane, the guy has to make the scariest climb up the entire thing while carefully switching platform ladders and making sure his sweaty palms don’t slip. Not to mention he has to ignore how high he is in the air while…

Ice climbing is one of those niche sports that pushes the cutting edge of crapping yourself, and materials technology. Equipment has to be light, stiff, flexible enough for shock absorption, and cheap enough for dirtbag climbers. Sounds like a job for nature.

Ostensibly, the Eiffel Tower seems like a decent structure to climb. There are so many exposed parts that you could hold on to and so many paths to climb up that there’s no real wrong move. But then you realize, as you watch James Kingston scale the tower, that it’s actually a terrifying climb because every piece is…

“Starvation is a crazy thing.” Earlier this year, Tommy Caldwell completed the first-ever free climb of the Dawn Wall at El Capitan. But he’d never have gotten there if he hadn’t been taken hostage by rebels in Kyrgyzstan. Here’s his story.

Nepal is home to the best climbing, trekking and mountaineering on earth. But, earlier this year, it also had a massive earthquake, an avalanche on Everest and is right now subject to a “blockade” by its neighbor India. Can you still visit? Surprisingly, now may be the best time ever.